As early as 1905, a musical version of Peter Pan had appeared on the New York stage featuring Maude Adams as the boy who wouldn't grow up. In 1924, Jerome Kern tried his hand at adapting the popular children's story, and in 1950, Leonard Bernstein wrote five songs for a stage adaptation of Peter Pan which featured Boris Karloff and Jean Arthur. But it was not until 1954 that the most popular stage version of Peter Pan would be born thanks to producer Jerome Robbins.

Developed as part of the Los Angeles and San Francisco Civic Light Opera series, Robbins originally planned to use the relatively unknown composer/lyricist team of Mark Charlap and Carolyn Leigh, but when he began to realize the potential of the project, he turned to the more established team of Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green for additional songs.

The original production featured Mary Martin as Peter Pan and Cyril Ritchard as Captain Hook. It opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on October 20, 1954 and ran for 152 performances. On September 6, 1979, the show was revived at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre with Sandy Duncan playing the lead role. This production proved even more popular than the first, enjoying a run of 551 performances.

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